Text and illustrations copyright © 2021 by Nikita Gill
Cover design by Tomás Almeida/Orion Books
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Originally published in Great Britain in 2021 by Trapeze, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.
First Hachette Books Edition: June 2021
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934392
ISBNs: 978-0-306-82640-5 (trade paperback), 978-0-306-82641-2 (ebook)
E3-20210419-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Note
And a Message from the Universe
Black Hole (Despair)
Reminders to Hold On to in Despair
Depression Will Tell You
It’s 2020
After You Died, My Grandmother Told Me
No Accidents
Daily Mantra 1
And the News Says
The Answer
Plague Year
On My Government-Mandated Walk
Stay
The Truth Is…
My Grandmother and I Are Talking About Death Again
I Wonder What They Would Put in a Museum for Our Times
After the First Death
From Everything Broken
Two Texts for Those I Let Go
Supernova (Reflection)
Reasons to Live Through the Apocalypse
In Self-Quarantine, Watching My Cat from My Bedroom Window
Hindsight
Daily Mantra 2
Letter to My Younger Self in Times of Turbulence
Baking Banana Bread as the World Ends
Notes on Survival
A Reminder from the Stars
The Confrontation
Small
On Raising Children During COVID-19
The Present
In Contemplation
Spring Cleaning
Is a Poet Still a Poet in Quarantine?
Affirmation for Living On
The Dynamics of Lonely
2020 Redux
Red Giant
When the Crisis Hit
In Isolation
The Fawn
Affirmation for Days of Self-Loathing
Across
A Reminder from Smaller Beings
A Lesson on Love
Good Blood
How to Deal with a Painful Experience
Reminder for Days of Uncertainty
Abundance
What If
Daily Mantra 3
The Last Rose of the Season
Essential
Listening to the Rain at the End of the World
People-Shaped Universes
Main Sequence (Resilience)
More Reasons to Stay
How to Be Strong
Lessons for Future Selves
Daily Mantra 4
The Masterpiece
The Making of You
Kindness and Hate Meet for a Drink at the End of the World
More Notes on Survival
Affirmations for Strength
Prayer in Lockdown
Progress
The Recipe
How to Be Happy Again
Hymn for the Future
And Even Through This
Silver Linings
Nebula (Rebirth)
Catching the Light
The Oak
Daily Mantra 5
The Forest
What They Do Not Tell You About Miracles
Your Soft Heart
Kindness
Love in the Time of Coronavirus
Cities, Ruins, and You
93 Percent Stardust
Daily Mantra 6
Where Hope Comes From
Acknowledgments
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A Note
In the year 2020, a devastating pandemic has wreaked havoc on our lives. No human has been left untouched by the devastation and the chaos that coronavirus has brought, and in this feeling of uncertainty we are united. I am writing to you from the past. Still in the middle of this pandemic, I was told that I was high-risk; I was thousands of miles away from my loved ones, worry for them consuming my every waking moment; I have found myself more alone than I have ever felt before.
And then… people we loved started dying and we could not say goodbye. All of this while we were living in one of the most politically polarized and divisive times in living history—peaceful protests for racial justice, fighting against racism and police brutality, were willfully misconstrued by people to suit their own political agendas, causing further chaos in a heartbreaking time.
All sources of hope now shattered, I realized that this was the year I had to rebuild hope from scratch, and to do that I needed to find the source. The good thing about loneliness is that it holds more answers than the warmth and chatter in crowded places that offer kind distractions do. So I did what I knew best. I wrote poems, mantras, affirmations, reasons to live. I learned how to honor despair so I could make way for happiness. And I also realized that I was not alone in this deep chasm of sadness. So many people were there with me. Perhaps even you.
We may not know each other. We may never meet. But if you chance upon this book, I want you to know that no matter what you are going through, no matter how big and deep and painful those feelings are, you are not alone. You do not walk this earth, feet blistered with burdens and suffering, by yourself. There are so many of us who walk with you, yet each one of us believes we are abandoned in our pain. Perhaps this is because we are always looking ahead. The next hurdle, the next part of the journey, the future. Or looking behind, unable to see any future because we are living in the past. It’s strange how we never turn our heads to the side. If we did, we would realize that we are not alone, even in self-isolation, especially through a pandemic. The beauty of our species comes from our togetherness. We are campfire tales, parental wisdom, grandmothers’ accounts, fables of friendships and conversations in the dark and in the pale light of morning. The truth of us is in the words, “I see you,” when you see someone struggling.
We are the sum total of our stories in the end, the ones we share by colliding with each other
. Where love, sadness, anger, and truth all come alive because we met and imagined together awhile. Stories are where hope comes from, too. We see it reflected in each other every day. When we go above and beyond for one another as volunteers during a pandemic, or when we simply check up on our neighbors and ensure the elderly have everything they need, this kindness, this compassion, this is where hope comes from. But it also comes from standing together against evil. It comes from chaos—rediscovery of truth, understanding loneliness and self-compassion, too.
Hope is an actionable thing, and just like recovery from grief, it is a journey to find hope, too. During my time alone, I turned to my oldest friend—the night sky—to do this. In exploring the life of the stars, I found what I was looking for. Just as there are five stages of grief, there are also five stages of hope. We are going to explore these through the rebirth of a star.
So hold on tight. We are going to do the impossible together and bring a star back to life.
And a Message from the Universe
In every moment of your existence,
several realities
are bursting across the cosmos.
Planets explode.
Stars burst.
Solar systems dissolve
or welcome a new planet
into the orbit of their own
sun-like star.
The universe gives them life
and says,
Listen.
I am saying
that if you change your thoughts,
you, too, can change your universe.
Black Hole (Despair)
noun
• ASTRONOMY
A region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape.
• INFORMAL
A place where lost items go never to be found again.
Reminders to Hold On to in Despair
1. Even at your loneliest, there is someone in this world feeling exactly what you are. There is comfort in this, if you let it in.
2. When you find yourself empty of love, remember that you are 70 percent water. Who do you carry all those lakes and oceans in you for if not to nourish yourself, your own thirsts?
3. There are still people who love you, even if you cannot see them right now.
4. If you must learn to practice something in this time, let it be mercy toward yourself.
5. Survival is ugly on most days. The thing is, you survived. That is all that matters.
6. When time feels strange and non-existent, remember that we learn so much about ourselves in the silence, for if we truly listen, we can hear our ancestors’ voices in the crackle of the stars.
7. You are not weak in sickness. You are fighting harder than you ever have before, and this makes you a warrior.
8. What we do not know can fill up a hundred libraries, but here is what we do know: kindness fills the world with only beauty, and tenderness is how flowers grow.
Depression Will Tell You
That the world is ending. It will also tell you how you still have things to do, as yet. For instance, your boss still wants that report emailed to him this morning. No, he doesn’t care that you need to be with your family because you are afraid, he needs it now. Depression reminds you that your family is probably scared, too. It tells you, they miss you, but you won’t be able to spend time with them because you might get fired if you do. And then how will you provide for them. You think of packing a bag, taking your family, and running away. The forest will have you; the trees are safer harbor—they give both shelter and fruit. Anxiety tells you this is a bad idea because you have no survivalist skills. You tell anxiety you have survived it and depression for a while now.
Still, you get to work. Look at the picture of your children. Tell yourself this is for them. Do the best you can. Trust that the best of you is the most of you and even on the days you do not feel it, it is enough. Even now, at the end of the world, with each painful day. It is enough.
It’s 2020
And everyone I know is on the verge
of breaking down.
Or has broken down.
Or has felt more tragedies
than the cosmos truly intends
for a person to feel.
And it’s hard to say,
This, too, shall pass,
because we don’t know if it will.
None of the clichés work.
Not while the world
stands still.
All we can do is pray.
All we can do is not blame each other.
And wish we had enjoyed one another
a little longer the last time we were together.
What is left but
to promise that when we next meet,
we will be kinder.
And fight for a better future together.
After You Died, My Grandmother Told Me
When I say Feel the grief
in full, I mean,
let it break your heart.
How else will it learn
to soften you
to the wounds of others?
Besides, she asks,
how do you think
the ache finally leaves?
No Accidents
He tells me, I wish I didn’t exist, and he is only nine.
My mouth runs drier than the cracked ground left in a once-lake,
and I ask him the necessary, pleading, why.
A slip of a child, shy and sweet, who loves silence and listening.
He shuffles his feet and looks down on the ground.
I feel like a mistake. Like I don’t matter.
I do not tell him, But you have so much to live for.
I do not tell him, But if you disappear, we will be sad.
I do not tell him, Love will heal you one day.
Instead I say, We sit at the edge of a magical ocean so wide,
we can only use light years to measure it, and every morning,
the sun still rises on you and I and everyone we know.
And every night, the sun disappears to let the moon glow,
and the night sky embraces us with her starry cloak.
Which is to say that the universe has not failed us yet.
Which is also to say, none of this is an accident.
You are no mistake, nothing about you is graceless.
That is the measure of a human life to the cosmos.
So unmeasurable, you are nothing less than a celebration.
All you must do is find your path, move to your destination.
Daily Mantra 1
When the universe could not find
something to live for,
it invented the galaxies and planets
and everything in between.
If you cannot find
something to believe in,
perhaps it is because
you haven’t invented it yet.
And the News Says
We all need to become islands
after a lifetime of being told not to.
If we love, we must love from a distance,
the way grief has taught us to.
So we find solace in digital arms instead.
Shining screens instead of shining faces,
longer phone calls, fingers typing,
I love you I miss you I need you.
We pray for our doctors, our nurses,
all our caregivers, and try
to display the best of human nature.
We pretend happy as best we can,
even when everything feels damned,
because this is what it means to be human.
To put on a smiling face and adjust
to the new normal bravely,
say gratefully, I’m fortunate. All I must do
is my best to adapt to the lonely.
When truly we mean,
I’
d give this whole island-self up for a hug
from my best friend,
my brother, my mother.
The Answer
(For J, who asked how to hide despair)
This year more than most,
I have searched for
a way to hide despair.
In words, in love,
inside a tree’s wizened bark,
under a stone by the ocean,
within a once-sacred temple,
and still,
it follows
everywhere.
When the grief begins
to overwhelm me,
I ask the sky for relief.
The sky smiles,
and gives me
two storm songs.
One tells me,
you do not have
to be ashamed of your sadness.
The other says,
you must only know to name it
when it knocks on your heart’s door.
Plague Year
As the plague swept across England,
Shakespeare carefully crafted the majesty of King Lear,
the misery of Macbeth, and the tragedy
of Antony and Cleopatra before year’s end.
The determination to create immortal work
also found Isaac Newton sequestered in his room
playing rainbows across his walls with prisms,